Stay with Me

It's day 32 of my whole 30 experience. Yesterday morning I woke up and for the first time in thirty days I was free to weigh myself and eat whatever I wanted. It was absolutely terrifying. What if I got on the scale and nothing had changed? What if I ate one thing off the plan and it is my gateway drug and I end up going on a sugar binge eating everything in sight? For those of you with a normal relationship with food I envy you. The only words I can use for what I felt yesterday morning was abject terror. 

So when I got to work yesterday morning I walked in and went to our fancy hospital scale (I call it the digital terror) I prepared myself as I took off my watch, my lucky red shoes, and emptied my pockets if I hadn't been at work I would have taken all my clothes. As I stood in front of the scale waiting for the familiar three beeps as it clears the previous person's data  it flashed zero and waited. I stood there in my bare feet and I took a deep breath a familiar voice repeated the words that had gotten me through the last thirty days "I am enough" I am not a number I am person and I will love myself no matter what is flashed on that numerical display. 

With a step of courage and trepidation I stepped upon the scale and as the machine flashed three red dashes and then the number flashed upon the screen. Ah. I said. Oh. Said my body. How much did I lose said my brain. I'm not so great with the math skills. So getting out my phone I pulled up the handy calculator plugged in the numbers and that unholy number thirteen popped up. I was grateful it wasn't just two pounds. 

So what have I learned in this thirty day experience? I've learned that I've romanticized food. I've made it the villain, the lover, the need, and the desire. Yet when I break it all down food is just to fuel the body to get us to the next day. While I wanted ice cream, cookies ( I had a dream one night everyone I worked with was a girl scout cookies) Coke, peanut M&M', mocha chillers (on day 11 I was willing to shank someone to get one) I realized that while the logical part of my brain was learning that good food is good bad food is a slut and will haunt your dreams like a really bad one night stand. On the white knuckled night a night of desire for a pint of Talenti Gelato I sat there in my in my house holding on to the table talking to myself out of driving all the way to Harmons and getting my drug that's when I knew it was working. When facing this dark side of myself I realized that if I could make it to the next day it would be okay. I would be okay. 

This experience hasn't been all bad. I've learned that I love to cook. I love the whole preparation, the transmogrification of turning one substance into another.  In cooking I've learned you have to be brave. You have to trust yourself that what you create is going to taste wonderful. One night when I made my shrimp carbonara I caught myself groaning in pleasure. When have you done that with a box of rice a roni I ask you? 

It's my weekend. I have twenty four hours before I start another round. While I've left the 260's and down in the 240's I realize I've begun a journey to change myself. I could stop and go okay and end up back where I was a month ago or I can keep on going and see what I my potential could be. I don't want to be sad anymore. I don't want to be addicted to food that makes me feel blah. I've wasted enough time, energy, and money in things that make me feel blah and shamed. I'm tired of feeling ashamed of who I am. These next thirty days are going to be fun. Anybody want to join me? 

For all of you wanting to know my meal plans and such I'll try to post them and where I've found my recipes.

Follow me on instagram too for pictures of what I'm making my id is BFARRU8422. 

  

Just Around the Riverbend

I have had a bad romance with food. I mean one of those deeply terrible wait till they call heart stops and starts kind of feelings. The kind of romance in which you know the characters are so deeply wrong for each other but in the moment they are passion personified. That's why we had to break up. Cause love means never having to say your sorry. In the midst of my breakdown I realized that as I felt worse about myself the more I ate. It was a vicious cycle of I hate you I love you don't leave me I'll change kind of feelings. When I stumbled upon whole30.com I realized that I wasn't alone. Cause that's how shame works. It makes you feel that you are on the island of misfit toys. Alone and forgotten. Unlike most addictions you can't stop eating food. You kinda need it in order to survive. So I couldn't quit cold turkey. Yet I needed something. 

 With all the noise and the chaos my life was creating I needed to do something to find a place of solitude and have an honest conversation with myself a true heart to heart. Having just finished Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert I realized that I was experiencing  many of the similar symptoms of despondency and lack of participation in my life.  Since I'm of limited means (A.K.A poor) I couldn't go off to Italy, India, and Bali to find myself. However I could take the main lessons of the book about connecting to a higher power, listening to yourself and allowing yourself to become vulnerable to the hard truths and learning to love your faults and talents. I decided that I would break my journey into a three fold journey. The first area being EAT, the second PRAY, and the last one being LOVE. See what I did there? Wink wink nudge nudge.

With this bad romance going on with food and 30 days of giving up my drugs (see mocha chillers, coke, sour patch water melons, Almond Snickers, Frosted Sugar cookies from Harmons, Talenti  Gelato, Tony's Pasta, Piccalo Brothers Pizza, Fries, Warren's Onion rings, Chocolate cake, and as I write this no wonder I was fat(er) I could go on) I decided to focus on just one area how do I change my relationship with food? How do I keep my self from going crazy?  So I wrote a simple list of rules adapted from the Whole 30 program 1. Tell myself every morning that I'm enough. 2. Don't weigh or measure yourself for 30 days let your clothes tell your story. 3. Take pictures of what you make. 4. Use Pinterest to help you find things that you want to eat that are compliant . 5. Don't play the Martyr card. Nobody is making you do this except you so man up Princess. This is a direct quote on my fridge. 6. Journal your experience. 

As it is day 19 I had a breakthrough this morning when I was eating my breakfast egg casserole that you are what you eat. If you eat heavy processed food you begin to look like it grey looking and blah. What I mean is you are never the advertisement picture but rather the real product the blah hamburger on a bun with a piece of watery lettuce and weird tomato. You look alright but your insides feel meh.  I was looking through my *Insta photos (cause I'm a vain narcissist sometimes) I realized that all my meals were allowing me to explore my creative side. Most would say that this is restrictive process. I would agree with you. I ignored my ability to just play. So  When I'm in the kitchen throwing things together I get to see the colors mix together to create a wonderful piece that just taste awesome and its like coloring in a coloring book I don't have to stay within the lines. Except for when your food explodes and you spend 2 hours cleaning your ceiling due to a chocolate chili atomic explosion seriously it was a mushroom cloud of ground turkey, tomatoes, and onions all over the place. Creating with food has allowed me to create mini art work that actually makes me excited. Plus I turn on the Pandora and  I sing and dance in the kitchen (my poor neighbors) . My relationship with food is changing and I like where I am going. 

Change is hard. But as in all things sometimes that what is hard is what makes us stronger. 

*Follow me on Instagram BFARRU8422 if you want to see a lot pictures of my randomness. 

When It Don't Come Easy

I will freely admit that I took a rather long blogging vacation and here' why. I had a mini mental crisis. I turned thirty, I became an Uncle, I got fat (er) , I lost my best friend, a friend got breast cancer, I got pneumonia and I couldn't write anymore.  As in I couldn't write anything that wasn't morose or super dramatic and oh so WOE is me! My life is so hard crap that no one really wants to read. I had pages and drafts full of rather dark and twisty Blake.

So I said to heck with it. I call it the breakdown cause I essentially went from participating in life to merely surviving it. Which at first is nice cause you get numb to all the feelings if its good or if it's bad all I felt like saying was meh shrug my shoulders and eat. Oh yes. I ate a lot. Apparently I had a lot of feelings to shove down. I ate ice cream, big hunks, sour patch watermelons, I drank mocha chillers, I drank coke like it was water. I limited myself because I allowed that nasty voice inside my head tell me that I wasn't enough. As in I wasn't perfect enough, fit enough, that I by my existence wasn't enough to be part of life. It wasn't pretty folks. 

Till I read Brene Brown's book the The Gift Of Imperfection . This book changed my outlook completely. I won't ruin the lessons that the book teaches only that it deals with key themes of being vulnerable, shame, and trying to be perfect in an imperfect world so basically everything that I have been dealing with. There was one line about how shame creates these feelings of not enoughness. She recommends when we feel shame creeping in to acknowledge it with three simple words "I Am ENOUGH". At first I read that sentence and went hah! That's cute. Later on that night it was as if all these negative emotions came through and said GET HIM!  As I laid there throwing the world's best pity party a strong voice (my voice) told the negative duo of depression and sadness that I was enough! I had a right to live my best life. 

For the first time in forever I slept well. It was rather odd. I mean really.Who knew being nice to yourself would change things? As I was instagram stalking I noticed my good friend April was doing this thing called Whole 30. Whole 30 I asked? So I went whole30.com and saw this challenge to go gluten, dairy, legume, sugar, and alcohol free for 30 days.  So I thought well why not? So I created the 30 for 30. I started June30th and as of tonight it's day 17. 

Its been hell and life changing all at the same time. Since I'm passed the half way point I thought I could try writing about this experience. So forgive me. I'm a little rusty as I enter back into this world being more vulnerable and open to change. Wanna join me? Blake-o-lution the Oprah edition is what I'm calling it.